The On-Off Switch

 I wrote a while back about someone throwing on the Climate Change Switch. It seemed as though we no longer got “normal” weather events. Instead, if it turned “warm”, the temperatures hit 95-100 instead of 80 – 85. If it “rained” the heavens opened up and we would get torrential downpours.  And now, we were so fortunate, with Ian barely passing us by, but leaving our area still pretty ok. But think Florida.

And yet, I observe still no concerted plan of action to combat Global Climate Change. It’s as though we know the Nazi’s are coming to invade us by boat, but we’re sitting around drinking our morning coffee, saying, “Oh they won’t be here for quite a long while. We have plenty of time. Have another cup of java.”

Are we really so captured by the fossil fuel rich owners that we have lost all sight of tomorrow? I understood, when the threat was 50-75 years away, that we would put off any immediate plans. But now, we seem not to understand that, not only are we destroying the futures of our grandchildren, but we may actually be destroying our own futures.

I am really old—87 and counting. I have already outlived all of my close relatives—grands, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. Yeah, yeah, I’m that old. And each day, I look forward to all the little things that our lives offer us.  We sit by our pond with a nice, homemade cappuccino, and we toss some food out to our little Koi family swimming around our pond, Harriet, Nick and Nora. As they nibble away, I think, some day, not too far away, I won’t be here to toss those food pellets. And I won’t see that sun rise each morning, as I take its picture and thank the lovely morning for reappearing.

But I think also, that the sun will still arise each morning. And if the koi kids are lucky enough, someone new will sit on our bench and continue to toss out some food for them.  But then I begin thinking anew about what that changing climate will do to the entire area.  Will this area become too warm for humans to live here?  Or will the storms continue to intensify to the point that the area becomes unsafe?  And could I have a conversation with anyone important enough to actually do something to head off the worst of the possible forecasts? And might they actually take action that might preserve our environment?

And then I thought about that recent NASA program, in which they fired off a missile and caused it to collide with some vague asteroid wandering about up above us. But that was simply a test, wasn’t it?  But suppose there was an actual asteroid up there that was beaming towards us. But it might not strike us for a year. Would we do something to head it off? Well, Yes, we likely would. And why? Well, because the action we would have to take would not require us to change our attitude towards any money-producing entities. See, that’s the clue. If taking action to head off an approaching asteroid might require us to stop producing coal, or to cease production of gas-powered vehicles, then we would likely just open another bottle of nice wine and pretend that the disaster likely will not happen for such a long time, that we need not actually do anything.

See, it’s money that controls everything. Well, money and organized religion.  But in this case, money is the damaging entity.  And when I think about that, I begin to understand that humans are a deeply flawed species.  If there were actually a God up there somewhere, humans would be her biggest mistake. Although humans are full capable of acting to preserve the world around us, we are also so mentally flawed that we are as likely to avoid taking action as to actually do something intelligent. 

Think Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump, or Adolph Hitler. Think Mitch McConnell, or Amy Coney Barrett, or Ron DeSantis, all deeply flawed humans, fully capable of acting to destroy humankind.  And why are all these deeply flawed, and evil humans in positions that allow them to prevent intelligent preventive actions by less flawed humans? Well, mainly because the not-so-deeply-flawed humans actually asked them to take charge of our world, ignoring their potential for permanent harm. Yep, we put them there folks. And now, we are being forced to sit around like dinosaurs, awaiting that fateful asteroid called Climate Change to bang into our little planet.  We could throw them all aside in that thing called an election. But will we?? Who knows?  Even the Shadow likely doesn’t know. Stay tuned, those election thingies are almost upon us again. We will see how stupid the remaining humans are.

 

Waiting for Godot, or God

 Ever since I wrote that piece about someone throwing the Climate Change “ON” switch, I have begun feeling like “Waiting for God” is the most likely description of ME.  I wish it were “Waiting for Godot”.

But two things seem to have settled in around everyone at least in America. First, Climate Change is real, and now seems deadly. And second, The Republican Party is dead and it has been taken over by some neo-Nazi clique.  The awful realization that has now taken over my brain is that both of these things are now permanent and may prove fatal to everyone in America.  We may in fact have destroyed the Nation within which we had hoped to see our kids, grandkids and even great grandkids mature and live happily.

When I was younger, I always assumed the best. That if one political party or the other became seemingly errant and potentially destructive to our Nation (see Reagan, or Nixon, or George W. Bush), they would soon be voted out of office and the people would regain some semblance of reality and maturity. And Climate?? Well, the Climate was always changing, not only seasonally, but from one year to the next.  One year we would have horrendous hurricanes, the next not so much.  One year, it would snow like we all lived in the Arctic, and then the snow would give way to daffodils.

And then, slowly it might seem, we began reading that we were facing a bigger Climate Change scenario, one that would literally give us a totally new game. Except, this game might kill us. But not to worry, it was going to be a while before that kicked in and we still had plenty of time to mount corrective measures. We would be fine.

And then, well, nothing happened. Everyone still wanted their gasoline engines, or their coal-fired furnaces. We still continued cutting down forests. Emissions controls??? Heavens, No, what are you thinking? That would require us to change our lifestyles and maybe even change the way we allocated resources.

But, you know, we sent some dudes off to the Moon in a fiery rocket thing. And they actually sent us some cool pics back.  And, of course, we continued killing one another in one war after another.  Turns out Wars are not good for the environment either.  And since I was born, we’ve had World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the endless Middle East killing fields, and the list goes on. We do seem to love killing one another.  And think of all the dudes killed in those wars. Some of them might have wanted us to engage in Emissions Control approaches. Who knows? Crazier things have happened.

And then there’s our politics, speaking of killing machines. We have always had kind of a weird system.  We moved away from the Royal-Kingly systems.  For some reason, we thought giving the power to select our government leaders to the people was better than having kings and queens selected randomly by a few dudes and dudettes. That remains an outstanding question with no serious answer.

But at least we seemed able to stumble along.  And then we moved into, of all things, a new millennium.  And we battled along, and then, and then, we elected a Black President, Barack Obama by name. And he was a wonder. He actually was capable of rational thought. I know, what a concept huh, a president who could think? And he governed as a wonder also. We (well some of us) loved having this man as President. It gave hope that this country had finally left the Civil War behind.

And then, who the Fuck did we elect??? Donald Trump???? We were given a choice—an intelligent woman (who happened to be married to Bill Clinton), or a corrupt, thoroughly incompetent Donald Trump. Note please, he had never succeeded at anything in life. He had experienced six bankruptcies, with more to follow, three marriages, two failed and a third showing every sign of repeat failure.  He had cheated to stay out of the military—fake “bonespurs”.  Oh, and his daddy seems to have been a literal Nazi. What a guy. And the American people actually voted for him rather than Hillary.  However imperfect you might have thought Hillary—compared with old Bonespurs, she seems a total high IQ saint. Maybe we should have elected her Queen.

Happily, Bonespurs was so terrible that he only lasted one term, with old Joe Biden kicking him out of office. And then, perhaps predictably, old Bonespurs began pretending the election was flawed and he had actually won. He even tried to get various state officials to appoint different electors to appoint him President.  Amazing really.

But beyond his astonishing and ongoing acts of corruption, lying, attempts to steal the election, somehow, he converted his gang of supporters from just ordinary disgruntled republican voters into something different. Just to show how they cared, they stormed our Capitol, with killings as part of their act, and that group now symbolized the opposition forces, led by Trump.  And that violent group continues to this day to dominate the opposition party. We should no longer call them republicans. But the Republican Party of old (think Eisenhower) finally died, and was taken over by old Bonespurs’ Neo-Nazis.  They really need a new name. They resemble the Christian Taliban. Maybe someone can “Americanize” that term.

And so now we have two opposing political parties, one of which—the TrumpAliban-is a violent, corrupt group who do not mind killing people to get their way. Really, think Afghan Taliban for this group.

And now we seem to have gone beyond some point of No Return on Climate Change (it will continue worsening regardless of what we do), and we have a criminally violent political party, led by Donald Trump, trying to destroy America. What could go wrong, huh?

So we are left with this question. Is it still possible to pull back from our headlong rush to throw America off the cliff? Does anyone have any braking mechanism? We will gain some vital clues during this upcoming 2022 election. If Donald Trump succeeds, then our world may finally be finished and we will be headed off the cliff into the canyon of flames down below.  So, let’s see how this all turns out.

Smile folks, you’re on television.

Saving Earth

 I haven’t written for some time now. I am not sure why, except . . . yeah there’s always that “except”.  So, what? Well, part of it is that, as I grow older day by day, I find less that is interesting to write about, except that I continue to age . . . day by day. Yeah, I keep reading about this dude or that dude who just died, and it turns out he was younger than me—still old, just younger than me.

But then I also keep reading about the continued deterioration of the “Other” political party—yeah, you know, Trump’s party. I can no longer call it the republican party with any seriousness, because Trump and his Christian Taliban BFFs have really destroyed it.  I no longer even understand what it is they want.  I mean, they seem to want Trump back in power, to the point that they even appear to support his “election was stolen” thing. I mean, how could that be? He tried and failed to sue in court, and failed over 60 times. That seems even worse than his six (7??) bankruptcies and three failed marriages.  How many times can you keep saying the same thing over and over again, before most people simply laugh at you?  I don’t know, maybe it’s organized religion. If they can believe their own claptrap, I guess they can believe Trump’s.  But it just goes on and on, and Trump is still not in prison. I don’t understand how that can be, given everything he has done. Maybe Mr. Garland is preparing the message now that will finally put him away for life, and then perhaps we can get back to be Americans—you know, people who disagree with one another, but who can still return to their pubs at night and have a nice brew together and laugh about something.

But then this weather thing keeps on smacking us in the face.  I wrote a while back about how someone apparently had flipped on the switch to Climate Change and we were now in a new era.  But this new era doesn’t seem to have but one rule—we are fucked. Some of us will drown because of rising waters either at the seaside, or at the riverside. Some of us will burn to death because forest fires are destroying our entire surroundings.

But then, we are told that California is just momentarily on hold til that gigantic weather front sweeps over the state and then simply drowns the state in water. Now, we used to live in downtown San Francisco, and it was so lovely there. Now apparently, we are simply awaiting that storm front that drops 20-30 inches of water.  And I just read that 30% of Pakistan is currently under water—think on that—30% of the entire country is under water.

Oh and that Greenland Ice Sheet thingie, which either has or is the process of melting, which will raise ocean water levels by some 10 inches. Oh won’t that be fun in Delaware, not to speak of Florida?

See, that switch really did get thrown. I had gotten used to being threatened that in 30-40 years climate change would begin wreaking havoc if we didn’t change our ways and stop heating up the globe. What I was failing to pay attention to was the fact that they have really been saying that for about 70 years. So, we have simply run out of time. Now, I guess we can run around like idiots making believe we can all switch to electric cars and then life will return to normal.  But apparently, this life is our new normal. 

We think about our great grandkids and wonder now, have we totally destroyed any chance they have at a reasonable Globe, and life? And most folks are still not really paying attention.  They seem to think we still have that 30-40 year cushion. But that’s all gone folks. The switch has been thrown. Now we have to do serious stuff to protect ourselves and this earth.

But first we have to throw the Donald Trumps of the world into the sea, and begin to talk seriously with one another about how we will protect our grandkids. What can we do NOW to begin arresting the dangers, even if our corrective actions take 30-40 years to work. 

If we don’t work together, then surely we will all die together, and sooner rather than later.

To The Future

 I just read an article in the Times about a review of peoples’ views regarding the present and the future. A small survey was carried out, asking, if people had the choice, which period would they like to be living in? Apparently, Paris 1920 was the big winner. Perhaps not too surprising given its reputation. However, curiously, almost nobody taking the survey voted to live sometime in the future.  And that is not a reassuring signal. However, attractive and even romantic was Paris 1920, the absence of any sentiment of living somewhere in the future, perhaps reflects our collective state of mind about that future.

I’m old, having been born in 1934. So I have lived through that Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the various near crises in the Middle East (we are always a footstep away from a disastrous war in the Middle East).  And then remember all that fun of the Cold War, with its various missile crises? ? Yeah, I still remember working at Lockheed as an engineer on the Polaris Missile system. Periodically me and my engineering buds would go to a nearby pub after work to have a beer or maybe a nice martini. And we would talk about where we would go should the missiles begin flying—head for the ocean areas, or make for the mountains.  Cuz surely, where we were living (pre-Silicon Valley) would be one of the first targets.  Yeah that was such fun.

And then I retired and moved down here to North Carolina, to be near kids and grandkids.  And, while we never achieved Great Depression Stock Market Crash days, we experienced several really nasty market crashes that sucked a fair amount out of our retirement.  But then we just kept on truck’n. And then we got Trump, and he was something entirely new. I mean, we had lived through Shrub’s stupidity, Reagan’s stupidities, and Nixon’s various cruelties.  But we had never actually imagined someone as inane, as cruel, as comically stupid running our country. And then, in the best tradition of “Can you top this?” a pandemic hit the World and the US, the likes of which I had never seen. We had seen the AIDS epidemic, but that seemed to affect gays mainly. We had also experienced the various attempts to constrain epidemics, like polio. But this COVID Pandemic seemed in a class by itself.  And unlike other disease entities striking us, this one was accompanied by something new—Public defiance, facilitated by our dumbass President. He seemed to be in denial, largely one imagines because a major disease state running around our country during an election period might well threaten his re-election. And so he waffled. Happily, the various Public Health systems of the world reacted appropriately and got a string of vaccines underway and finally out to the public.  My wife and I each got our two shots and then our two boosters. But meanwhile, a large part of the public was in denial, claiming the disease was a fake, or that it was a ruse implemented in order to defeat Trump.

And so, millions of people died all over the world.

And then it seemed that we somehow settled into a new world, in which the pandemic still existed, people kept becoming infected, including many who had been vaccinated, and people kept dying. While the rest of us, especially we Oldies, became used to wearing a medical mask every time we went out to a store, or really anywhere people gather.  And we called this our new reality.

But then we began noticing something else. As I noted in a recent blog posting, our weather seemed to change, as though someone had simply flipped a switch. Summer has always been filled with heavy duty weather. But suddenly, it seemed as though we had the same weather every day. The temperature would rise into the 90s, and a thunderstorm would be likely—every day. And should that thunderstorm actually arrive, it tended to be fearsome—heavy wind, lightning and then torrential downpours. But the threat was present every day. And the heat and humidity were the same every day.  Yet another “New Reality”.  And the weather all over America, and indeed the World, had suddenly changed. We used to live in California and loved our time there. But now California seemed to be simply burning down.  Reservoirs all over the west were suddenly drying up. Lake Mead, the Colorado River for heaven’s sake, all beginning to dry, and thereby reducing the availability of water supplies throughout a very large region. Ice sheets melting everywhere, as snow caps began disappearing. Yeah, something different was definitely going on. And it was called Climate Change. But, much like the COVIDIOCY, thousands, more likely millions, declared Climate Change a hoax. Fox News prevailed and the American people bought into the conspiracy theories created by those who had much to gain from selling such junk.

And so we find ourselves living in a very strange period that seems to portend a hostile future.

We seem to face several futures with some serious risks:

·      Public health crises created by new diseases, or variations of older ones (COVID seems to change at least quarterly), compounded by massive public denial, which leads to larger than necessary disease states and deaths;

·      Climate change that continues to modify the world in ways that threaten our very existence as humans, and likely the existence of other species of earth’s inhabitants ;

·      A population enraptured by lies about reality to the extent that they threaten the existence of at least America’s democratic system of governance. The essential problem seems to be the very large number of undereducated people who prefer believing conspiracy theories about reality, so that they do not have to do anything to combat the very real threats posed by that reality.

And that brings me back to that question about where would you choose to live, in the future (where the risks are unknown), or somewhere in the past, where the risks are known? If as a people, we always express a desire to live in the past, it means that we choose not to face the future. Now the future has many unknowns, but if we choose to ignore what we actually do know, then we may be designing a future for our great grandchildren, and even their great grandchildren that is deadlier than it need be.  Indeed, the only way we can avoid condemning our children of the future to disaster is by thinking now about changes we must begin making.  And many such changes may well affect our current lives in ways we may not like.  Therein lies the problem. How to convince folks that we must begin making sacrifices, or beginning to conceive changes that simply create new futures, new industries, new ways of living and making a living.  But we cannot any longer just pretend that nothing is happening and that it is even possible to retreat to Paris 1920.  Who we elect to govern ourselves is one way we set future courses that define new futures for the world’s children and grandchildren.

We can no longer afford to elect people who deny reality. They are literally killing us all. And they will continue to kill us all, so long as the people allow them to sit over us and continue the lies that are now killing us.  We need futurists folks. We need to shed the deniers, because they are deadly to the future worlds of our great great great grandchildren.  Whatever the cost to us now, we need new folks who will steer us into a new, saner, safer world.

Trump Supporters

In Sunday’s New York Times, within their Weekly Opinion Section (used to be Weekly Review) is a set of articles by their editorial (opinion) writers, concerning things they got wrong, despite the care with which they prepare their articles.  One of the writers, Bret Stephens, wrote one of particular interest—getting it wrong about Trump supporters. It is useful to note that he did not say he was wrong about Trump, especially now, after the January 6^th hearings. We now know conclusively that Trump planned and inexpertly tried to overthrow our legal system of governance in an attempt to remain in power.  But Stephens thinks he was wrong in how he harassed Trump supporters. He opens his piece thusly:

“By Bret Stephens -- NY Times Opinion Columnist

The worst line I ever wrote as a pundit — yes, I know, it’s a crowded field — was the first line I ever wrote about the man who would become the 45th president: “If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.”

This opening salvo, from August 2015, was the first in what would become dozens of columns denouncing Trump as a unique threat to American life, democratic ideals and the world itself. I regret almost nothing of what I said about the man and his close minions. But the broad swipe at his voters caricatured them and blinkered me.

It also probably did more to help than hinder Trump’s candidacy. Telling voters they are moral ignoramuses is a bad way of getting them to change their minds.”

 

In other words, he does not think the Trump supporters were/are good folks who were just misled, and thus should be spared any criticism. No, rather, he thinks that calling them nasty names is counterproductive. And he is probably right. Calling someone a racist pig is unlikely to get them to join your side.

 

And I began wondering myself, what can one say about the people who continue to support Trump?  Frankly, I am baffled.  So, then I wondered, well, why does anyone, knowing what we all now know, continue to support Trump?

 First, I guess we should understand that all of the people who now support Trump do so because they believe that he is on their side.  So, what are these “sides” taken by Trump, to which his supporters are devoutly attached? Because Trump has so few positive attributes, it is difficult to attribute voter support to things positive.  But it may also be the case that voters are all a mix of personalities, and professional characteristics. Perhaps unlike their chosen leader, they reflect both positive and negative qualities. But I see them drawn to Trump because he appeals to some of their strongly held negative views.  So, what are some of these views?

 

1.       Racism: Trump seems strongly racist. Now this characteristic is an interesting one. First, he denies being racist, despite his track record. Probably 60% of this country thinks that Trump made racism worse in this country. Now, how many people in America are racist? I don’t know.  I could find no statistics revealing how many Americans are racist, mainly I assume because, who would reveal in writing that they are racist?  We know that we have systemic racism in America. People of color experience more instances of violence against them by law enforcement. People of color experience relatively greater difficulty in obtaining jobs in the upper sectors of our economy.  So, if you are White, and are feeling economic pressures, you may be drawn to a man who seems to understand your plight and who promises to protect White, Christian America. Also, a curious issue exists among Trump supporters. Our country is a country of immigrants, yet many Trump supporters want our borders closed. They seem to hate especially immigrants of color arriving from South of our Border, while ignoring the ones arriving from Europe.  So, Trump supporters find his racism appealing, and they might well vote for him on that basis alone.

2.       Misogyny: This one is baffling. On the one hand, Trump seems to treat all women as his actual or potential mistresses. On the other hand, he numbers many women within his group of active supporters.  Why would women be drawn to a seemingly active misogynist?  Maybe it is the case that those women in particular view all men as misogynists, and select men based on other characteristics, like racism.  He seems to have experienced three unsuccessful marriages (his last to Melania continues but it seems less than successful), as well numerous sexual affairs, some more public than others. So, perhaps some of his male supporters like his maltreatment of women, while his women supporters prefer him for other odd reasons.

3.       Mental Incapacity: whether he is as idiotic as he often sounds, or acts remains a question I guess, but his fundamental incompetence is likely associated with a lack of intelligence. He has experienced six bankruptcies in business, and his performance as President can only be described as near-catastrophic.  Many believe that he simply is not very bright, and his operational incapacities (e.g., six bankruptcies) follow. It is possible that people who have had less than stellar educational experiences, feel angered at the folks who succeeded intellectually and used it to their advantage in business.  They might be drawn to Trump who seems more like them.

4.       Anger at the World: Trump seems angry at much of the world. He explodes easily and frequently, and often simply lies to explain his anger—he is angry because so and so (Hillary, Barack, Joe) did such and such, even though they did no such thing. His supporters don’t care if he lies, because they likely spend much of their lives angry at somebody or something beyond their control.  Which brings me to a last characteristic.

5.       Lying: Lying is one of the more baffling characteristics, drawing support.  According to The Washington Post:

“When The Washington Post Fact Checker team first started cataloguing President Donald Trump’s false or misleading claims, we recorded 492 suspect claims in the first 100 days of his presidency. On Nov. 2 alone, the day before the 2020 vote, Trump made 503 false or misleading claims as he barnstormed across the country in a desperate effort to win reelection.

This astonishing jump in falsehoods is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency, averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.”

Now why would folks want to support a human who lies that much?  My only conclusion here is that they like the fact that he lies his way out of trouble (remember, he is not yet in prison, despite the facts against him, many of which seem to require imprisonment). So, I think his supporters like his chutzpah. He routinely, daily really, sticks his finger into the air, or into someone’s eye, and they love that, because it is how many of them feel daily. He is just like them, rather than those other politicos.

 

So, we may have a permanent support troupe who will continue to show at his rallies, and would certainly vote for him, or for any candidate he endorses.  And depending on how many folks fall into that pool, we may have a permanent “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the American System of Government. Note please that the only solution to this potential cataclysmic event is for folks who are intelligent enough to understand the risks posed by Trump, to get out and vote for any and all forces opposing him and his minions. If you wish to see America continue as a democratic nation, You Must Get Out and Support ethical candidates.  You Must.

 

The Switch Is On

Is it just me, or does it feel as though someone just threw a switch and suddenly the world changed? I know we have been talking about global climate change for a while now, well arguing about whether it exists, and if it does, what it means for humankind.  But suddenly, on comes 2022, and the entire world seems on fire.  First the West Coast of America began getting our attention by essentially literally burning down. One gigantic fire after another.  And these fires weren’t just forest fires. I mean, we have always had forest fires in our West. No, these fires are always way beyond human control. We send out crews and we bombard the fires with things intended to douse them, but they just keep on burning.

But then, all of a sudden, our own little region of North Carolina seems converted into a frying pan. Every day the thermometer hits 90 and then climbs a bit more, sometimes breaking through that magic mark of 100.  Then some clouds roar overhead and deliver some rain. Ahhh, yes, the blessed rain, right?  Well, not quite. Yes, it is true that the rain soaks our landscape, making our plant life happy. But it doesn’t just rain, like it used to. No, now when the heavens deliver, they practically drown us. The other day we had two little rainstorms over a few hours, and they dropped 5 ½ inches of rain. That is a lot of rain.

And now I am reading about Europe. All over Europe the heat is on, full blast. It’s over 100 degrees all over, climbing in some regions to 115 or more. Great Britain is experiencing over 100 degrees (or 40 degrees Celsius, which they seem to prefer).  Places that almost never see 40 degrees C. are seeing it now almost every day.  Railroad transit has been interrupted because tracks are failing. Roadways are failing, and so they are encouraging folks to just stay home (replacing the pandemic as a closing device).

In places that used to have ice, the ice is departing. Now, when ice melts, sea levels will begin rising.  Florida beware, you will soon be under water, and you won’t even be able to blame that Idiot-Malenfant Ron DeSantis.

And I keep wondering what happens when that thing called “Winter” begins to appear. Will winter be reduced to 75-80 degrees, or should we expect some sudden reversal, and the heat gets shut off? Who knows? And are we doing anything about all this? Well, no, because WE (the collective WE) haven’t really decided that global climate change is here. No, we are still pissing on each other about what is going on. Ask Joe Manchin, whose state produces, apparently, ONLY COAL. And Joe will tell you that there is no global warming, or even if there is, his state has nothing to do with any of that. No, Joe doesn’t believe in collective good, only his own good.

And now, just when we became totally fed up with COVID and masks and all that crap, there appears a new variant—yeah, the variant of the month. And this one seems to spread more easily and even evades the vaccination.  So, we are back to heavy duty mask wearing, except that we’re not. Just when we should all be routinely donning our masks again, most of us are ignoring all that in the pretense that nothing is going on.  And, it turns out, the various public health authorities are cooperating with that laissez faire attitude. Yeah, I guess they are now fed up with the public yelling at them all the time.  So, what the hell, let’s all pretend that we’re not going to get sick, none of us, right??

And then, as though the above isn’t bad enough, the American political system now seems totally broken.  Our system has always been annoying, mainly because the American people are often annoying.  But something happened that has changed us and/or the system.  Maybe it was the Barack Obama elections. You know, electing a decent, intelligent, thoughtful and ethical man of color was apparently too much for many Americans.  And so, they came out of their closets and decided to become openly hostile, you know, thoroughly republican. And so, their first act was to enable the election of perhaps the most despicable human being in the country to the US Presidency. Yeah, that Donald Trump thing. And he gave them all permission to be awful, as was their wont.  And so America turned towards racism big time, and misogyny, and we began turning away from the rest of the world, making believe we were the only creatures on the planet.

Now, to be fair, the awful people—Donald’s Tribe—failed to prevail in that next election, and so the country elected Joe Biden, an old guy who is also decent.  But The Tribe refused to concede. Yeah, The Donald told them it was ok to riot, so long as it was in the best interest of keeping him in power. So, first he encouraged the Insurrection, in which armed white dudes invaded the Capitol and started killing people, and actively looking for more people to kill—like Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.  And, though they failed at that, they went back home and decided to focus on creating chaos. Partly, they began by electing idiot-malenfants, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bohbert, Josh Hawley (one of the active cheerleaders at the Insurrection) and others like them. And those folks gave Mitch McConnell an open ticket to create chaos.  And Mitch is so experienced and so competent at creating chaos that he became America’s Dream Chaotic-Maker.  Mitch simply refuses to help along anything sensible in the way of legislation that might help America. Nope, if it’s good and created under a democratic President, it ain’t gonna happen.

And so, the failure of America has begun. I keep thinking of that famous book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  And America is on track as we speak. We are a Nation headed into a state of total failure. And, worse yet, we still have all those nuclear weapons and that really big heavily armed military. Can you imagine what that Military might do in the hands of people like Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Greene/Bohbert & Co,? The mind boggles.

And here I sit, at the really ripe old age of 87, waiting for someone to flip the sanity switch back on and turn off this damnable switch to Infinite Chaos. We really have had enough, and our grandkids and Great Grandkids have more than had enough.  They want sanity to return.  They want the insane folks to go back into their closets where they used to sit and drink booze and suck their thumbs. That’s where they belong.  It’s time folks. Go home, and let the adults recover our Nation.

SCOTUS v. America

 Well, that was certainly a week of SCOTUSIANA. Let’s see, they crushed abortion rights, removed the ability of EPA to regulate the environment, and trashed New York gun regulations.  So, what’s next? I assume someone will go after the FDA’s ability to regulate food and drugs. Can’t have the government messing with our food supply. And why would we ever want the government to oversee our drugs? I’m sure the money managers at all the large drug and food chains are our best guide to safety, right??

And guns . . . I mean why would anyone want to mess with the public’s ability to buy, sell, and use guns? We have such a good record, right? So, of course SCOTUS would intervene. They of course know so much about the quality of food and drugs. And who else but SCOTUS could possibly understand the social and physiological complexities of pregnancy? I’m sure that Brett and Amy will be our best guides.

And, what happens should one or both of the other two branches decides that the crew at SCOTUS has overstepped?  Is there actually a fix for having someone like Brett Kavanaugh overseeing our American system of Democracy for the rest of his natural life?  Our founding fathers decided that SCOTUS should be different from the other two branches.  Mainly, it would seem that SCOTUS is intended to serve as a check on the other two branches.  The Executive and the Legislative branches are both fairly explicitly political.  Over time, those two branches are elected by the people, based at least partly on what each branch promises to do for the people who elect them.  And those promises tend to follow political party dogma. Republicans today seem to favor relatively minimalist government prescriptive and oversight policies. They seem to want private capitalists to run our country via money channels. Democrats are perhaps a bit more mixed in what they favor, but generally want more public investment in things like health care and public assets (like roads, parks, public waterways), plus relatively greater oversight of private sector business practices. They also favor paying for government services through public taxation, whereas republicans seem to disfavor taxes, at least of their ruling classes.  Ronny Reagan, for example, seemed to believe in the theory of the Laffer Curve:

The Laffer Curve is a theory formalized by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer to show the relationship between tax rates and the amount of tax revenue collected by governments. The curve is used to illustrate the argument that sometimes cutting tax rates can result in increased total tax revenue.

Reagan was mocked greatly, since he managed to produce some impressive national deficits. The federal deficit went from about $78.9 billion at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency to $152.6 billion at the end of it. At points between 1983 and 1986, the deficit was actually more than $175 billion. Now, to be fair, the two Bush’s managed to produce even larger deficits than Reagan.

Now, the Court has relatively little to do with any of that, except to the extent that individual justices might favor one party’s policies over the other.  But at least in theory, SCOTUS is intended to rise above the mud of electoral politics and decide cases based on law, the Constitution, and our system of democracy.

But if we assume that individual justices are appointed by the political creatures who lead our government, we can see that those justices will be viewed by the folks appointing them as either friendly or not to the policies of the appointing crowd.  Largely we have been relatively fortunate in that regard.  But like many things, SCOTUS appointees have been increasingly politically biased towards one party or the other, but mainly republican. Trump, managed to get three appointees approved, whereas McConnell refused to even review Obama’s choice, Merrick Garland. So, because Trump is Trump, we now have three justices who seem highly questionable. And with Clarence Thomas reliably ultra-right wing, the Court has suddenly swung to hard core right wing republican. With the latest three decisions –killing Roe v. Wade, opposing New York gun regulation, and opposing the workings of EPA, we now seem to have a Court that is borderline out of control.  It is now to the point where opposing folks are at least examining alternative strategies.

And what are some of these strategies?  Well, one is to kill the legislative tactic of filibuster.   With filibustering, passing a law requires 60 Senate votes, which neither party has.  So, it would seem natural to at least turn to this practice in an attempt to return to a system in which the majority (i.e., 50+%) can in fact pass laws.

But the other approaches being examined now are looking to modify the Supreme Court itself.  Several approaches include:

1.       Add more seats to the Court. Under one proposal known as the “balanced court solution,” the court would be expanded from 9 justices to 15. 10 justices would be selected through the existing process, but would be split evenly between Democratic and Republican appointees. Those 10 justices would then select 5 judges from lower courts for the Supreme Court to serve with them for a year. This solution would make the confirmation process less partisan and insulate the Court from politics. 

2.       Alternatively, the Supreme Court could be comprised of a rotating panel of appeals court judges, who would cycle through the Supreme Court on a scheduled basis. Federal judges already serve on rotating panels on lower courts. Doing the same for the Supreme Court would eliminate the current high-stakes nomination process, and make the Supreme Court less partisan. 

And some are looking to methods whereby justices who have some vested interest in an outcome could be forced to recuse themselves. For example, Clarence Thomas’ wife was an active participant in Trump’s attempt to overthrow our government on January 6^th. Thomas should not be anywhere near any proceeding that involves the insurrection.

Now revising the Supreme Court at all is one of the most difficult challenges facing any government legislators. So, it will be at the least fascinating to see whether any government we elect is capable.

However, it begins to look like we face a crisis in the actual continuation of our system of government. For reasons I cannot fathom, our republican party seems to have moved far in the direction of neo-fascism. With Democrats blocked at one level by the filibuster, and at the other by a “bent”, if not fully corrupted SCOTUS, it will be interesting I am sure to historians to see how all this turns out. WE may be witnessing the beginning of:

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.

I am sure some historian has already begun his first chapter. Stay in tune and watch your neighborhood book stores.